So we have been working on the car now for about 3 months, but as I have been prowling the forum I realized I should probably post the story, and some of you might be interseted in it.

A few months ago our 12 year old DAUGHTER came in and said, "Dad, Mom, can we talk for a minute?" We agreed, and she presented us with something she had been thinking about. She said that she would like to buy a car with her babysitting money. We were like, you are only 12.

Now I should tell you that she is 12 going on 22, but she presented these arguements to us. 1. She would like to buy a fiero because she saw one at a show and thinks they are cool (we are corvette people, so she has been around a few shows). Fair enough I like GM products and remember the Fiero fondly from my youth.2. She makes the arguement that it gets reasonably good gas milage3. It is relatively inexpensive, so she would be able to afford it.4. She could completely restore it in the 4 years until she turns 165. She would learn about how cars work, it would be a cheap education for the money6. She would only have the capacity to take one friend along with her, so there would be less distraction7. She wants a manual so she would learn how to drive stick8. When it is done it would be a cool historic sports car9. She would pay for it all herself.

Hmmmmm, the wife and I look at each other, and go ok. So the search was on. In the end we found a good deal on an 86 SE 2.8 and 4 speed. Lots of miles, but solid chassis and a few spare parts. So she has been stripping it out and working on repair, replace, fix, etc. for a few months. The interior is out and she has started on refinishing the wheels.

I just thought a few of you might be interested in this....if so let me know, and let me know how to post pics and I can put up some of her progress and her doing the work.

Great story - Welcome to the madness. My youngest son started on his first Fiero when he was 14 - helped do most the work - paid for most the parts. He is now 17 - been driving his Fiero for 2 years now and is completely self reliant when it comes to his Fiero. Your Daughter has started down the right path - sounds like she has great parents!

Wow, you have one awesome daughter there. My 15 year old daughter and I have been working on restoring an '84 for her for the last year. We still have a decent amount of work to do, but it is getting there. Welcome!

Ahhh, I love threads like this. It's amazing how these wee cars can become a common hobby between parents and children - I built my first Fiero with my dad a decade ago, now we're both well and truly bitten with the bug and have never been closer.

Wow, I don't know what to say. Thanks for the great response everyone! I'm going to start work on the thread and then once I get it up to date, I will share it with Kathryn and give her access to comment on there as well.

Once Kathryn decided to move forward with purchasing her car we had a couple of decisions to make. Once of the first was how much money she would like to spend. The easiest thing to do, would be to have her save her money and in about 4 years buy a really nice, well maintained car off of one of the forum members. :-) After all, we all know it is cheaper to buy something already built than to replace a bunch of parts yourself. Besides, thought I, this bug might wear off in a couple of weeks or months and then I won't have a derelict car. Nope! She wanted to learn how to rebuilt something, so my easy way wasn't going to work. Instead we had to start the search for a car.

Now, not being a fiero expert we started to read up. We realized pretty quickly that she wanted an '85 or later (88 prefered) car, would prefer a V6, it had to be stick (5 speed preferable) and she didn't care if it was a GT or SE....she liked both. After a bit of saving, and a lot of looking we came across an add on craiglist that was about 40 miles from our home. We drove out to see it and took along Uncle Bob. Looking at the car, I was horrified. I could see a lot of cosmetic work etc. that was going to need to be done. We had warned Kathryn before we left to see it that she didn't have to buy it if she didn't like it but that it would be her decision. Here is what we saw:

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Notice the great rattle can spray job!

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Interior's a bit manky.....ok, more than a bit!

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Engine bay is relatively clearn.......score 1.

So an 86 SE, with a 2.8 and 4 speed. I wasn't really impressed with the paint, body, interior etc but we realized pretty quickly was that the chassis was in great shape. Very little if any rust underneath or on the cradle, nothing behine the trunk carpet that was bad. The coolant lines under the car were intact, and the only bad corrosion was around the battery tray (or what was left of it).

Not that it mattered anyway since Kathryn decided early on that whatever we did was going to end up gloss black with yellow racing stripes on a black and yellow interior. So overall, this was not to bad. We were going to be painting and redoing an interior no matter what. We pulled Kathryn aside and told her if she wanted it, at least it appeared to be a solid foundation on which to work. She thought about it for a couple of minutes and said she was going to make them an offer. So Bob and I just stood back and let the kid go to work.

They were asking $600 for it. Kathryn offered them $400 to start, and the guy said he would really like to get $500 for it. In the end we walked out with it for $450. Not to bad considering we drove it the 40 miles home.....with one stop along the way to put a bit more gas in the tank.

Of course, once we got it home, she had to call her friends and take it around to show them. Then it went to the back yard to start the strip work, until there was a space for it in her Uncle Bob's barn.

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My thought was, that was where we would leave it for a few weeks until it was ready to go into the shop to start the dissassembly. NOPE! Kathryn had other ideas. I came home a few days later to find this:

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Apparently she couldn't wait. Luckily for Dad, she was pretty smart. If you look in the middle picture you will see the zip lock bags and the masking tape. As she disconnected wires and switches she labled the wire and the switch with the tape, and place the screws in an individual ziplock and labled that as well as to what they came from.....Man I love that girl!

So with pieces coming out of the car she was anxious to see some actual progress. We talked about it and figured that there was no point in doing something half. So if we were going to rebuild this thing we might as well try to do it better than GM did it originally. Her first thought was, "I don't want any rust on my car!" So we started with the support brackets behind the waterfall console. These things looked really bad after 24 years of humidity. Especially since they were never coated at the factory and are simple mild steel stampings.

I asked Kathryn how she was planning on cleaning those up? She thought maybe some sand paper would do it, which of course it would....if she wanted to be there till she was 13 working on it. We introduced her to the wonders of the wire wheel (One of her new favorite tools!) This is what she ended up with.

That is awesome. Wish I would have had started like that when I was 12.

The car looks to be in great shape. You should see the one I just started on, talk about horrified... The paint looks like it could be restored to a really nice shine. The seats and fabric can all be cleaned to look like new. I use a mixture of Oxy Clean and Tide detergent mixed in a bug sprayer to clean interiors. Hose them down and let them soak, scrub with a brush and hose down with water. Let everything sit out in the sun for a day or two and it will come out looking great, and smelling great too!

Yeah, dad thought of #10 too, but thought it better not to bring that to her attention. We found the car over by canadian lakes and she talked him down to $450, not bad for a car that ran home! Not only that but the underside of this thing is in great shape! So I think we are doing ok so far. Thanks for all the comments ya all. Thought I would share a bit more, and let you see pictures of Kathryn as well. -MH

We got some of the car stripped out at home, but didn't want to do to much since we still needed to drive it to my Brother-in-law's for its permanent home during the rebuild. Kathrn did manage to get the headliner out without breaking it.....thankfully. I have heard they are a nightmare, so yes, dad helped with that part of the process considerably. As part of that she got the visors out of the car and decided that:1. They looked horrible2. They needed fixed3. They should be black.

So away she went. We decided that this should be a Mom and Kathryn project. Here is what they looked like once they were out of the car:

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They stripped off all the old material from one visor, and left the other intact since they are going to put the pockets back together they same why there were originally only with black material instead of grey. The partical board is in good shape (anyone know why there are holes predrilled in it). The cardboard over the top was pretty beat up, so Kathryn decided to template that and remake it entirely. Also the metal rods had a bit of surface rust so they go wirewheeled and resprayed. The springs and pivots got oiled, and the material is cut.

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More update on the visors as they are finished.

With more of the interior out except dash, seats, steering wheel and carpet, we were ready to move it to its new home for hte next few years. So another 30 mile trip without incident and it was ready to be prepped. Kathryn wanted the hood and decklid off so that we could see as she says "The fun stuff". Now it is time to get the seats out. Passenger side......no problem. Drivers side......you have GOT to be kidding me! With my Brother-in-law in the drivers seat throwing his weight against the seat, and Kathryn and I pushing on it we still can't get it to budge. TIme to do some research......

The oracle that is Pennocks advises that perhaps the wire under the seat that releases the tracks has broken.....check it....nope, the tracks are just rusted in place. At this point Dad is a bit nervous about what the floor pans are going to look like if and when this thing does come out. A lot of effort, breakfree, and patience...drivers seat is out!

Then up on to jack stands for a while. The result the looks like this.

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Of course, the drivers seat track is unsalvageable...after all, it is rusted shut. Kathryn is curious as to how much a new track might cost and since we are unsure and she has a Saturday off, out comes her favorite tool---the wire wheel. 6 hours, a lot of elbow grease, some real grease, a wire wheel, and she has the track working smoothly again.

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Since they rusted so bad from all the moisture that gets tracked into the car we decide to pull them completely apart and powdercoat them before reassembly. NICE!

With the car on jack stands, and the seats out, it is time to remove the wheels.

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Of course, the wheels don't look real good. We talk a bit about buying new aftermarket rims, but at a cost of approximately $400 it is a little steep for the 12 year old. Her comment was, "I only spent $450 for the whole car!" So we talk about potentially polishing them. The problem is a previous owner somewhere along the way decided to try the same thing, but without really doing a good job. Hmmmm. Well we could strip them and then powdercoat or paint the centers? That sounds like a good idea, since that is realatively inexpensive. But first all the old gunk has to come off. Outside and inside.

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Look at all that crap!

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There you go girl! Get scrubbing!

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One 8 hour Saturday, 2 cans of stripper gel, and the clearcoat and paint is off. Soon to come, Kathryn and some fine sand paper!

But for now, it is time to go back to the car. She hasn't seen it in a couple of weeks, so we might as well do a bit more work!

Ok, then let's teach you how to drill out some door rivets! We need to get into the door in order to replace window motors and lock solenoids (The ones in there are still ok, just not great and we got new ones for free with the car! Might as well replace them while we are in here).

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And we can look at the suspension while we are here Kathryn......hmmmmm.....perhaps it is time to replace some of those suspension bushings....those look original. What do you think?

Wow. My 15 year old daughter has absolutely no interest in cars other than wanting to be given a cool/cute one when she turns 16. That looks like a great car for the price.

stickboy I feel your pain when my daughter was 16 I wanted to give her a Fiero to build. She had no interest in working on a car or anything else. Why work for anything in life when it will just be handed to you… that’s how she was raised by her mother’s family! Anyway because she refused to work on the car I sold it to my brother.

michhiker28 your daughter is very inspirational… man I wish I had a daughter like yours. Oh well I tried… you can bring a youth to the car but you can’t make them drive it

It's really a great feeling to work with your daughter like that. My daughter helped with her Fiero when she was 16, and now she has a good understanding of vehicles and has a reasonable inkling as to whether or not it's time to change the freon in the headlights so they don't get too hot and burn out.

But, I caution you; she's working on a Fiero, and many of them come with a case of beer and a box of foul language.

And we can look at the suspension while we are here Kathryn......hmmmmm.....perhaps it is time to replace some of those suspension bushings....those look original. What do you think?

How about some nice shiny parts!

Funny.. Ternunda has a stack of the very same pretty red poly bushings sitting on my workbench We're also doing the ball joints and inner / outer tie rods at the same time. Additionally... we're performing the berretta brake upgrade all the way around (See here: http://fierozone.tripod.com/realbrakes/index.html )..

Wow, I don't know what to say. Thanks for the great response everyone! I'm going to start work on the thread and then once I get it up to date, I will share it with Kathryn and give her access to comment on there as well.

Once Kathryn decided to move forward with purchasing her car we had a couple of decisions to make. Once of the first was how much money she would like to spend. The easiest thing to do, would be to have her save her money and in about 4 years buy a really nice, well maintained car off of one of the forum members. :-) After all, we all know it is cheaper to buy something already built than to replace a bunch of parts yourself. Besides, thought I, this bug might wear off in a couple of weeks or months and then I won't have a derelict car. Nope! She wanted to learn how to rebuilt something, so my easy way wasn't going to work. Instead we had to start the search for a car.

Now, not being a fiero expert we started to read up. We realized pretty quickly that she wanted an '85 or later (88 prefered) car, would prefer a V6, it had to be stick (5 speed preferable) and she didn't care if it was a GT or SE....she liked both. After a bit of saving, and a lot of looking we came across an add on craiglist that was about 40 miles from our home. We drove out to see it and took along Uncle Bob. Looking at the car, I was horrified. I could see a lot of cosmetic work etc. that was going to need to be done. We had warned Kathryn before we left to see it that she didn't have to buy it if she didn't like it but that it would be her decision. Here is what we saw:

--MH

Reminds me of my 1st fiero......only my 1st fiero was a basket case that was riddled with problems and issues. keep up the good work. I'll be watching this thread.

Plus your already a head of the game. Every Fiero. And i mean every one of them never made it the 1st ride home. every one had to be towed. I thought my formula was going to be different........ no it broke a shifter cable on the way home.

BTW you got duped a little on your good on gas argument there a little. the 4 speed (at least in my experience) is horrible MPG wiase for the size of the car. my stock 4 speed was an 86 GT that ran great and was pretty fast for a small 6 but it was a bit thirsty. My formula with the turbo 3400 and 4 speed drinks like a college student with expensive taste (premium only).

All in all though the 4 speed is a good transmission. it is a very strong transmission as well. he car seems like a very good base to build off o. keep up the good work.------------------Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.(88 formula 3400SFI turbo) Made the kessel run in less than 12 parceks b****(84 IMSA) garage queen(84 base) big orange firecracker(06 solstice) my vert Fiero

Not much to update in one day, but I will share the progress from last night.

One of the things that we noticed early on was that the sail panels were beginning to show their age. The black plastic frames were showing some fading and both of the pontiac emblems were gone. The lexan windows themselves were stared and cracked in a couple of places, so they were going to need some work. We looked online the a couple of weeks ago when we were down working on the car to figure out the best way to get them off....unfortunately, wrong directions. Sooo, it was a good opportunity for Kathryn to learn a valuable lesson. Sometimes it is better to leave it and live to fight another day than it is to try to force something and break it.

After a bit more resaerch we found some better instructions for removal than we had originally and off the panels came. Yippee!

For Christmas Kathryn had recieved the new plexiglass panels in a dark tint and with custom lettering. Instead of putting SE panels back on the car hers will say Kathryn's Fiero in yellow script on a deep tint background. She was pretty excited about these, since it keeps with her yellow and black color scheme as well as making sure that no one will mistake that it is HER CAR!

Last night she worked a bit with dad on removing the old glass and tape. The glass came off relatively easily......the tape not so much so. After watching her struggle for a bit with a putty knive and some sand paper, dad introduced her to the wonders of acetone! A lot of elbow grease, a small mess, and some time later this is what we ended up with.

They are now ready for paint and here is a question for the group. We have a couple of different options. Once they are painted it looks like we could order the emblems from the fiero store for abotu $26. Some others have suggested a grinding and sanding down the raised section and using a pontiac emblem from the grand am, cost about $20. Another option is to repaint the frame black, and then mask off the arrowhead and spray it yellow to contrast and leave it. Cost is effectivly $0. What would everyone do, since the car isn't going back stock anyway? Or do you have other suggestions? Fire away!

One last thing for the update. Kathryn does not yet know that this thread exists. Mom and Dad just recently ordered her MRMIKES seats for her birthday in yellow and black, a yellow firewall cover and some other goodies. She will get them in June. So dad will continue to update the thread until then, and we will let her see the thread for the first time for her 13th birthday. Then she will have 3 years to finish the project and can also enjoy everyones comments and suggestions.

we were down working on the car to figure out the best way to get them off....unfortunately, wrong directions. Sooo, it was a good opportunity for Kathryn to learn a valuable lesson. After a bit more resaerch we found some better instructions for removal than we had originally and off the panels came.

Instead of putting SE panels back on the car hers will say Kathryn's Fiero in yellow script on a deep tint background. She was pretty excited about these, since it keeps with her yellow and black color scheme as well as making sure that no one will mistake that it is HER CAR!

Breaking the sail panel - been there, done that

Kathryn's Fiero in yellow script - Nice idea - but a suggestion on keeping this HER CAR - put a kill switch in it somewhere. There are a lot of jerks out there that like to steal our little cars.

Thanks DataCop, we ordered her new sails from fierosails.....excellent work and great service. They put some really cool script on the panels for her, and they look great! Can't wait to finish them. Thanks for the link as well for the emblems, we'll look at that too.

Many years ago, I was much like your daughter, in that I HAD to have a car at age 12. Of course, the Fiero didn't exist yet, so it was a VW Beetle, which was what I learned to wrench on, including engine rebuilding, transmission work, etc.

Anyway, gotta figure out how to get my girls as interested as your daughter!